Foreign Affairs – The Soviet Victory That Never Was

Could the Soviet Union have won its war in Afghanistan? Today, the victory of the anti-Soviet mujahideen seems preordained as part of the West’s ultimate triumph in the Cold War. To suggest that an alternative outcome was possible — and that the United States has something to learn from the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan — may be controversial. But to avoid being similarly frustrated by the infamous “graveyard of empires,” U.S. military planners would be wise to study how the Soviet Union nearly emerged triumphant from its decade-long war.

New York Times – Welcome to ‘The Mansion’

With CJ Chivers and the Marines at Combat Outpost Sullivan, the home in Helmand Province for much of Weapons Company, First Battalion, Third Marines.

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Afghanistan: Connecting Assumptions and Strategy

Three well-known military thinkers re-evaluate what we’ve assumed to know-that just wasn’t so-about a country where we’ve been fighting for eight years.

Washington Post – Newly deployed Marines to target Taliban bastion

Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government.

PBS Frontline – Obama’s War

Excellent documentary overview of the current situation in Afghanistan. You can read the Transcript but I also recommend you read the Interviews and Analysis.

The Atlantic – Time for Decisiveness on Afghanistan

Robert D. Kaplan writes that Obama needs to get behind his chosen general and put the spectacle of indecisiveness behind him. Otherwise, in the coming months, the Democrats may be seen as having lost a war. And if that happens, not even the Nobel Peace Prize will rescue his reputation.

The Times – Morale dips for American marines in Afghanistan

In a remote part of Helmand troops are dismayed by the ambivalence of locals and a sense that the Taliban can outlast them.

New York Times Magazine – Stanley McChrystal’s Long War

Is it just too late — politically and militarily — for the general to win in Afghanistan?

Washington Post – Obama Wanted a Petraeus. Buyer Beware.

Greg Jaffe writes that it is hard not to look at Stanley McChrystal without seeing David Petraeus.

Washington Post – ‘Almost a Lost Cause’

Greg Jaffe writes that one of the deadliest attacks of the Afghan war – the Battle of Wanat – is a symbol of the U.S. military’s missteps.

New York Review of Books – The Afghanistan Impasse

Ahmed Rashid updates the current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Washington Post – McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure.” Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

New York Times – A War Won Less by Force Than by Persuasion?

CJ Chivers comments upon the latest counterinsurgency guidance for the American and international units fighting the Afghan war that was released this week.

New York Times – Marines Fight Taliban With Little Aid From Afghans

Lack of support from Afghan officials has hindered US Marine efforts to win over residents in a region where the Taliban remain a menacing presence.

Washington Post – Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change

How General McKiernan’s ouster reflected new realities in Afghanistan – and Washington.

Washington Post – In Afghanistan, A Test of Tactics

The new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan, as articulated in military headquarters and congressional hearing rooms, puts the emphasis not on killing Taliban fighters but on winning over the local people. But in this highly contested swath of Helmand province, US Marine Corps Sgt. Anibal Paz’s squad is likely to be ambushed before he has time to sit down for tea.

Esquire – The Long Walk: Afghanistan (and Its Future) as You’ve Never Seen It

C.J. Chivers writes that eight years into the war we were compelled to wage, the ground mission in Afghanistan remains just as brutal as war there has been for centuries. And now, after years of inattention from Washington, this war begins again. On the hunt with the men of Viper company.

Washington Post – Marines Face Stiff Taliban Resistance

Marines pushing deep into a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province battled insurgents in a day of firefights around a key bazaar Sunday, as an operation designed as a U.S. show of force confronted resistance from Taliban fighters as well as constraints on supplies and manpower.

Washington Post – Afghan-Pakistani Hostility Impedes U.S. Troops

Greg Jaffe writes that while senior U.S. and Pakistani officials have stepped up efforts in recent months to tame the chaotic border area, used by the Taliban as a base from which to fire rockets at U.S. positions in Afghanistan and smuggle fighters and weapons. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, where U.S. troops are struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Washington Post – A Personal Touch in Taliban Fight

Greg Jaffe writes that in the Afghan mountains, a company commander strives to gain the trust of frustrated villagers

New York Times – Erratic Afghan Forces Pose Challenge to U.S. Goals

CJ Chiver’s latest report from Afghanistan.

The Spectator – If We Lose Hearts And Minds, We Will Lose The War

David Kilcullen, the man who helped think up the strategy that saved Iraq, saysthat high-tech weaponry is not the answer in Afghanistan. Only a genuine partnership with the people can help us win.

Wall Street Journal – Stalemate in Now Zad

A single company of U.S. Marines is slugging it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan’s toughest ghost town. The battle shows how limited troop numbers have hurt the war—and why the U.S. is changing its strategy.

New York Times – Arms Sent by U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands

C.J. Chivers writes that Insurgents in Afghanistan, fighting from some of the poorest and most remote regions on earth, have managed for years to maintain an intensive guerrilla war against materially superior American and Afghan forces. Arms and ordnance collected from dead insurgents hint at one possible reason: Of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents’ corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces, according to an examination of ammunition marking. The presence of this ammunition among the dead in the Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, strongly suggests that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops.

New York Times – In Bleak Afghan Outpost, Troops Slog On

C.J. Chivers accompanies another US Army patrol in Afghanistan.